1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates, in general, to electronic devices having a relatively small display for providing a graphical user interface, and, in particular, to a hand-held electronic device having a graphical user interface ("GUI") and "touch screen" for accessing an entire collection of functions of the electronic device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Icons are well known in the art of graphical user interfaces (GUI's) for controlling information processing systems. An icon is a small pictorial representation of some larger set of information. An icon provides information, in a condensed format, about the content or status of the underlying system. Icons are designed to trigger, through visual perception, operator concepts that communicate the content or operation of the system in a quick manner. The system then can be easily accessed or used through actuation of the icon.
An example of a controller unit for a home entertainment system is the Stage 3 Controller unit of Kenwood, described in Kenwood's publicly available manual "STAGE 3/ Setting up your KC-Z1 Controller", 1996. The control unit includes a hand-held controller with a touch screen functionality for the GUI. The GUI provides a large number of icons that correspond to a large number of system functionalities. The functionalities are activated through the icons on the touch screen. The GUI is user-programmable to select the icons that should be present in the main menu and those that should not. This is due to the relatively small amount of screen space available to the GUI.
Today's home entertainment systems have a large number of functions available to the user. The Kenwood Controller unit uses a GUI to extend the number of functions that are available. The problem with GUI displays for hand-held devices, such as remote controls for consumer electronic devices, for personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other portable data devices, and even for photocopiers is that they are relatively tiny. Adding the touch screen functionality to these displays means the displayed icons have to be large enough to be accessible by a person's fingers or if the icons are tiny, then they must be large enough so that some type of stylus can be used to "touch" the icon. If larger icons are used the number of functionalities to be displayed diminishes. These drawbacks limit the use of touch screen displays on hand-held devices.